A new bracket projection is posted this morning and it was a rough week for the teams that were previously No. 2 seeds.
Things started going badly on Monday night when Virginia came back and won at North Carolina. Tuesday night saw Kentucky lose at home to LSU on a last second tip-in. At the same time, Michigan melted down and lost at Penn State, which had previously been 1-11 in the league. Despite that, Michigan's loss is still considered a Quadrant 1 game. That shows how strong the Big Ten has been this season.
Michigan State bucked the trend by winning at Wisconsin on Tuesday night.
No. 9 overall Purdue could have possibly moved up to a No. 2 seed, but the Boilermakers also lost on Tuesday night, shooting 20-71 from the floor in a loss at Maryland.
The result of all of that is very little. The No. 2 seeds shuffled around a bit, but all of them stayed on that line. LSU, coming off that big win at Kentucky, jumped up to a No. 3 seed, knocking Purdue down to a No. 4.
It's reasonable to assume with all the games left among those teams at the top of the bracket, we will see more shuffling in the next month.
Top seeds in latest Bracketology
Seed | East | South | Midwest | West |
| No. 1 |  |  |  |  |
| No. 2 |  |  |  |  |
[Check out Palm's full bracket with all 68 seeds and the first four four teams out on our Bracketology page]
Weak crop of bubble teams
The bottom of the bracket is where things get difficult to sort out. This is one of the weakest collection of teams I've ever seen on the bubble.
It is so bad that I cannot get Oklahoma, which is 15-10 and losers of seven of its last nine games out of the bracket. Texas, at 14-11, would be just second team to get an at-large bid with a record of fewer than four games above .500. The other was Georgia in 2000, which played such an insane schedule that no team can be compared to it.
Arizona State has a few good wins, but keeps taking bad losses. Still, there they are.
UCF has only beaten Alabama and Temple at home and lost to Florida Atlantic at home. The Knights are still in too.
Clemson, Arkansas last two teams in
Clemson and Arkansas are one-hit wonders. The Tigers, which lost this week at Miami, and the Razorbacks, who have a couple of bad losses, are the last two teams in the bracket.
And if we wanted to kick them out, which teams do you replace them with? Georgetown? The Hoyas have a nice win or two, but a very soft schedule and a couple of bad losses. Butler? Its best win is vs. Mississippi at home, of course, because the Bulldogs struggle to win anywhere else.
Utah State? The Aggies have a nice NET rating, but not much to back it up. Their best win is St. Mary's.
UNC Greensboro or Furman? The Southern Conference, led by Wofford, has a few decent teams in it, but only Furman has an eye-catching win. The Paladins beat defending champion Villanova on the road. Their overall schedule is very soft though. Same for UNCG, which does not have a bad loss, but also doesn't have a significant win.
This bracket needs a few teams to make a late run to play their way in to the field. Or perhaps, a few conference tournament upsets to steal some of those bottom of the bracket bids.
There is still a month to go though, so anything can happen.
